Join 'Great Conversation,' Kutztown Grads Advised

May 26, 1985|Sunday Call-Chronicle

Pat Polillo, a Westinghouse Group W broadcast executive and former editorialist on Philadelphia's KYW-TV, urged Kutztown University graduates yesterday at the school's 119th commencement to join Aristotle, Dante, Marx, Freud and Einstein in the "great conversation" that has spanned the ages.

"Become a student of the Earth, not a stranger on it," he lectured, saying that, by simply reading the"good and great books," the 633 graduates could "achieve intellectual virtue, the highest form of human activity."

As he spoke, the 6,000-student campus was virtually silent, basking in bright sunshine cooled by a gentle breeze that drifted over the athletic field where the graduates were seated.

Several thousand parents, spouses and other well-wishers crowded the bleachers of the Golden Bears' stadium, while groups of undergraduates leisurely occupied grassy knolls overlooking the graduation exercises.

To add to the ambiance, the chimes in the tower of Old Main struck 11 just as Dr. Robert J. Wittman, vice president of academic affairs, presented the candidates for their degrees - 589 undergraduate and 44 graduate.

Degrees were conferred posthumously on Lynn A. Williams, a Tamaqua woman who would have graduated cum laude in nursing, and Robert R. Fox, an education major who would have graduated in December 1984. They both died in automobile accidents.

The graduates, all of whom wore black robes, walked onto the field in a procession of academic pomp and circumstance enriched by composer Carl Maria von Weber's soft orchestral tones.

"We care about you and hope you have continued success and happiness," Dr. Lawrence M. Stratton, university president, told the graduates.

Dr. Dorothy Moyer, professor of Elementary Education at Kutztown, gave the alumni greeting to the graduates. Reading from "Leaves of Gold" by Clyde Francis Lytle, the Shakespearean expert and author of the school's alma mater, Moyer proposed several ways the graduates might test whether they had been really educated.

In part, it read, "Has your education enabled you to . . . be a brotherto the weak, make and keep friends, look an honest man in the eye . . . and can you look at the sky and see beyond the stars?"

Paul Herbein of Kutztown R.3, the class president, in a brief speech wished his classmates success.

Stratton presented honorary certificates to 11 members of the Class of 1935.

Prior to introducing the commencement speaker, Pennsburg Mayor James E. Mullen, chairman of the university board of trustees, asked the parents and spouses to stand in recognition of the sacrifices they made. In some ways, it was the most emotional moment of the proceedings. Turning toward the sidelines, the graduates erupted into applause and shouts of thanks.

Mullen said Polillo got his start in radio and broke into television in 1948. He took time out to attend St. John's College in Annapolis, Md., and graduate school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Polillo was one of the founders of KYW's renowned "I-Team," a group of investigative journalists who won numerous awards. He is noted for his hard- hitting editorials, among which were several advocating reform in the state Liquor Control Board and the state auto inspection system. The "I-Team" no longer exists.

"What struck me throughout my career on the positive side is the continuous and, I believe, adequate flow of bright young men and women," the news executive said. "As far as intellect, inventiveness and imagination, there is enough, and there always has been."

But the gray-haired, balding Polillo was "struck with the ignorance and naivete exhibited by most of these same talented people."

He said that's because most people have no "road map for their life on Earth."

"They're out there plugging away, with little or no guidance or sense about how (the world they live in) came to be the way it is," Polillo contended.

"You find the mapmakers," he urged. "The ones who shaped the world as we see it."

Speaking in an informal style, Polillo said there are such people know them they would discover a comforting realization, that they are not the first generation to experience the world's problems.

"I think you should work at understanding these thinkers and what they assume to be true about this world," he said. "With the help of these mapmakers, you can develop your highest powers - to learn, to know and understand your world and come to terms with it."